What should I put on my SSD?

Isack

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Oct 19, 2014
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I am soon getting an m.2 SSD, but it will only be 256GB. I am not even using that much now on my 1TB HDD, so it shouldn't be a problem, because I won't install everything on the SSD obviously. The problem is, I don't know what to install on the SSD and what to install on the HDD.

I know putting some programs on the SSD will not have a noticeable speed advantage (if any) over the HDD, but I don't know what those programs are. Obviously I'm going to install Windows on it, but am not sure what programs to install on the SSD for a speed advantage when using them.

I've heard games don't open any faster on an SSD than and HDD, is this true?
 
Solution
Games do open faster, but most of them don't play any better once they have started so it's a momentary advantage.
Large open world games tend to access the hard drive more often and benefit a bit more, things like world of warcraft or fallout 4 for example.

Install your OS and any programs you launch on a very regular basis on the SSD. With games you can pick maybe a few of your favourites to put on there and install the rest to the old drive.

Steam is good if you use it, it allows you to create game libraries on multiple drives and choose which one to install to. SSDs don't tend to work well when they are too full, you may want to either enable over provisioning with the manufacturers utilities or just remember to leave it with say...

Isack

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Oct 19, 2014
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Right, but do you think installing Chrome onto it would be advantageous? What about some games?
 

Dugimodo

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Games do open faster, but most of them don't play any better once they have started so it's a momentary advantage.
Large open world games tend to access the hard drive more often and benefit a bit more, things like world of warcraft or fallout 4 for example.

Install your OS and any programs you launch on a very regular basis on the SSD. With games you can pick maybe a few of your favourites to put on there and install the rest to the old drive.

Steam is good if you use it, it allows you to create game libraries on multiple drives and choose which one to install to. SSDs don't tend to work well when they are too full, you may want to either enable over provisioning with the manufacturers utilities or just remember to leave it with say 10-20% free space. It does depend a bit on the design though, some SSDs handle this better than others.
 
Solution
Put "live" programs and Windows on your SSD. Movie.mp4 is an example of something that isn't live. Photoshop is live. Games are live programs. Whether or not they will benefit isn't clear-cut. Some will load just as quick on your HDD and others won't. Games with huge maps would benefit. Aside from load times(beginning of game and between levels) games won't benefit. It won't do a thing for frames per second.